AS THE shops are filled with images of cute, fluffy chicks, Animal Aid is highlighting the terrible suffering that these animals endure.
Male chicks are considered useless by the egg industry, and millions of them every year are gassed or shredded alive. 
Female chicks are selected for a short, typically miserable life of exploitation.
Around half of all eggs laid in the UK come from hens shut permanently in cages, and even so-called ‘free-range’ chickens are often kept in crowded sheds. 
When they are just 72 weeks old, they will no longer be able to lay as many eggs and will face a brutal death at the slaughterhouse.
Isobel Hutchinson
Campaign Manager (Animal Farming and Slaughter)
Kent

Hedgehogs are in crisis
THE plight of hedgehogs and the drastic fall in their numbers has been a cause for concern for some time now. 
Oliver Colvile MP, in conjunction with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and Hedgehog Street, has launched a petition.
A total of 100,000 signatures are needed by August 11 to ensure this issue is discussed in Parliament. Please add yours to the petition (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions – type ‘hedgehogs’ in the search box) to help save our little spiny friends.  
Terry Green
Droitwich
 
Branson’s role in climate
I READ with much interest and concern in the Scientists for Global Responsibility Newsletter, which carries articles about climate change, UK security, plans for more nuclear  power stations and this time “Flights from sense:  how space tourism could alter the climate”.
It is over a year ago since Richard Branson and his company Virgin saw a high-altitude disintegration  of Virgin’s Galactic’s SpaceshipTwo (SS20), which caused the tragic death of pilot Mike Alsbury. The mission had been a test flight of what Virgin still hopes will become regularly scheduled tourist trips into space.  
No press coverage has mentioned the impact that the industry would have on the global climate were this type of spacecraft ever to make frequent space tourism a reality.
The particular concern is due to a new dirtier type of rocket engine, the “hybrid”  which, if deployed on a large-scale, would soon start to pollute the stratosphere and create a low density cloud of soot which would span the globe.  
It would be heartening to think that Sir Branson might help to play a leading role in helping the world reach the ultimate goal of  “preventing dangerous climate change” rather than simply maximising profits.
I doubt I am alone in wondering how useful it is to blast off into space.
Wendy Hands
Upton-upon-Severn
 
Retired are least scared
INTERESTING reflection on human nature that retired people are the least scared about the prospect of job losses if the EU decision triggers more economic uncertainty.
Perhaps the referendum should have been restricted to voters under the age of 55 years as they will have the most to lose or gain whatever its outcome.
Derek Fearnside
Worcester


Shame of ‘lost’ post
I CAN sympathise with Phillip Probert (March 10) in losing money in the post.
Last October I enclosed £50 in my granddaughter’s birthday card and posted it to Devon from Warndon Post Office – it too went missing.
I duly completed and sent off a Post Office lost property form. They wrote back and apologized for losing the letter and sent me six first-class stamps. Out of all the cards sent to her, mine was the only one with money in. Is it just random chance that some letters go missing? Or is it more sinister?
As a pensioner I can ill afford to lose £50, although I made sure my granddaughter didn’t lose out.
As a regular user of the postal service of course I am aware sometimes things go astray, but what a shame that a once great service has decayed so badly and the Post Office is so complacent.
MRS JANET DUGMORE
Worcester


Vegans will not save us
MR BURGESS is wrong. What I read struck me as ‘cobblers’, specifically “livestock and their products account for 51 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions”.
Agriculture apparently accounts for around 12.5 per cent.
So, not the 51 per cent claimed, whilst transport and power generation accounts for 35 per cent of all emissions. 
If one looks at methane emissions, which are 23 times more ‘destructive’ than CO2, ruminants’ – cattle, sheep, giraffes, deer, elk, camels etc – apparently account for 16 per cent of emissions.
Wetlands account for 22 per cent of the world’s methane emissions, while rice production, which I assume is an integral part of a vegan diet, accounts for 12 per cent.
I would suggest such figures imply we cannot “protect the environment in general” by “going Vegan”.
N TAYLOR
WORCESTER


It is time we were heard
RE THE leading letter published on Wednesday March 16 the rather aggressive and personal attack from one councillor to another is enough to put most folk off from becoming involved in local politics.
One would hope that any criticisms or statements would be centred on policies and important issues, which are of interest and engage the local community and inspire us all to take part in how we manage our resources and funding!
The cuts are significant and they will affect a huge number of people – particularly all those in the lower income bracket and all those in receipt of benefits.
Austerity measures are only just beginning to bite, with worse still to come.
Cuts to disability payments will affect 273,000  people with personal independent payments cut from £73 to £21.
How are these disabled people supposed to manage their budgets with such swingeing cuts to their state allowance, which they rely upon to pay for personal care, 
taxi fares to medical appointments, etc?
I believe that most individuals who regularly use the NHS are concerned at the barely disguised attempts along the road to privatisation.
And I believe they wish to maintain the service along the lines that it was set up, even if it requires a larger slice of our GDP.
Privatisation is also creeping into our state school system.
However we feel about how politicians conduct themselves, it is becoming increasingly important that we take up our democratic responsibilities and make our voices known.
We must use our votes to create a society in which all are treated with dignity and fairness. 
Geraldine Lowman
Worcester